What is good enough?

He has said this a few times . . .

“Four wins isn’t good enough,” Joe Douglas has said on more than one occasion after last year’s 4-13 Jets campaign.

But what is good enough?

Last year was clearly a season the Jets used to develop players.

“The entire staff developed these young players and the whole plan for that is to benefit the future,” Douglas said in a quote thanking Saleh in the 2022 off-season.

Now what?

“We need to be playing meaningful games in December,” Douglas said after the season (not in relation to the other quote).

Clearly that second quote, which Douglas has used more than once, is a way of stating there are high expectations, but he’s not going down that slippery slope of a playoff mandate, something some reporters hunger for every year.

But you know what, every NFL team should be playing meaningful games in December. Because the NFL is set up for competitive balance with their draft/waiver wire order and salary cap. So based on the even playing field the league has set up to create parity, every team should be hanging around in December, vying at the very least for a wild-card spot. Even if you are, let’s say 6-7 in December, you are probably still alive, and with the rules, the NFL has a place to keep every team viable, every team should be at least in that position.

The Jets supposedly have a tough schedule this year, but what does a tough schedule even mean? It’s not who you play, but when you play them. Who’s available that week in a sport with so many injuries?

So vying for a wildcard spot needs to be the bar.

And if they are going to do that, they can’t approach this year, like last year, where “the whole plan for that is to benefit the future.”

This can’t be an NFL Europe-type season where it’s about developing players, it has to be about at least competing for a wildcard spot.

After 11 straight years out of the playoffs, the fans deserve at least a wildcard game or coming close to earning one.

And that is going to require much better play on defense. It’s hard to win with the 32nd-ranked defense.

They have added some key new pieces like cornerback Sauce Gardner and defensive end Jermaine Johnson, but they are rookies, so perhaps it’s unfair to expect them to have all the answers out of the gate.

The four guys on defense who could help lift that side of the ball out of the gate are safeties Jordan Whitehead and Lamarcus Joyner, cornerback D.J. Reed and defensive end Carl Lawson.

These are seasoned vets, at positions the Jets need buttressing. The Jets need more instinctive ballhawks on the backend and Whitehead, Joyner and Reed can provide that. Too often last year, opposing quarterbacks looked like they were conducting a seven-on-seven drill against a Jets pass defense that left too many chasms to throw into.

The Jets need Lawson to be a master disruptor at the end position, something they were lacking last year. The Jets’ edge-rush was substandard last year, allowing the opposing quarterbacks to often get too comfortable in the pocket.

Look Gardner and Johnson should help the Jets’ defense, but you can’t expect them to put the defense on their backs in year one.

The Jets also need coordinator Jeff Ulbrich to add more wrinkles that confuse opposing quarterbacks. If veteran quarterbacks come to the line and know what defense you are in, that often doesn’t end well.

So the bar at least has to be a wildcard contender in 2022-23.

July 14, 2022

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